


Xacto, Menthols, Bottles

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Heavy Drinking, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, broken relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 11:25:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Well, not hell. This is hell.Kissing and fucking a man you love, but can’t heal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> seriously head the tags

Peter is standing in Target with Bucky when he sees the thing: small, heavy metal handle, and a stupid plastic cap he knows will break the minute he pulls it off. 

He doesn’t need it. Doesn’t have a reason to buy it, but for some reason he’s reaching out and grabbing the $4.98 xacto blade and muttering about school projects. 

Bucky grunts, half disbelieving and half uncaring as he follows him to the register and then to the gas station down the street. They buy the cheapest menthols and Bucky follows Peter to his own apartment. 

Peter’s been hiding here since…

Bucky’s been hiding too, and Peter knows that’s why he doesn’t say anything. They climb the fire escape, Peter lithe and graceful and Bucky in one loud, thunking jump, ignoring the couple a few rooms down griping at them. 

The couple should stop having loud, porn-like sex at all hours of the day. 

It’s noon, and they sit on the escape smoking their way through the pack in silence, sipping on flat coke and trying to muster up the energy for food. 

And then it’s dark and Bucky is drinking his way to sleep and Peter steps into the shower. 

The cap breaks as soon as he opens its, just like he expects. The handles a little heavier than he thought though, and the blade so much sharper than $5 should’ve bought him.

The first few slices don’t do much; he’s still trying to figure out how to get it to work. And then he presses just right, digs in, and the skin on his arm peels apart, red soaking his feet. 

It’s a beautiful, ugly sight and it shouldn’t entice him the way it does, but he tries it again, this line curving a little at the end, and again, veering off in the middle. 

He stays until the water is cold, watching the red swirl at his feet, and then he presses a tissue to his arm before he pulls on a Henley. 

—

Peter didn’t mean for it to become a habit. The same as Bucky didn’t mean to drink himself to sleep each night. 

Habits are funny that way. 

He works his way down his right arm, annoyed when the lines aren’t right, when his hand shakes too much to get deep enough. But the high of the pain, that sharp burn, watching the red swirl at his feet…

He runs out of space there. And he moves on to his left arm. 

No one asks questions. There isn’t enough worry for two ex-heros hiding in a dirty hovel. 

But Peter digs the blade in and tells himself one more. 

Next time. 

—

Bucky knows. Mostly because Peter’s left blood on their sheets and any bump to his arms or his thighs makes him hiss. 

Bucky hates it. Peter just picks up a bottle and waves it at him. 

They aren’t coping. Either of them. They’ve lost everything. Tony and Steve. 

Natasha. 

Harley who found MJ when Peter disappeared. 

So they aren’t coping and the cigarette burn in their lungs isn’t enough, but they’re still living. 

Technically. 

Bucky just says “Be safe.”

Peter says, “Don’t drown in your sleep.”

—

The thing is. It’s not a science. Sometimes his hands shake too hard for a good slice. And sometimes there’s not enough canvas to balance out the risk. 

Sometimes Bucky drinks so much Peter has to roll him on his side so he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. 

There’s a pile of cigarette butts on their landing, but at least sometimes they manage to eat something. 

—

Peter washes Bucky. Washes his hair his beard, peels off the puke stained shirt and brushes his teeth. 

Bucky stitches a gash too long, too wide. 

—

They kiss, blood and cigarette and alcohol. 

It taste right in the wrong way. Bucky’s eyes are glossy and when he pins Peter to the bed, tiny red pearls staining the sheets. 

—

“Fuck them,” Peter announces. 

Bucky tilts his bottle up. “Fuck ‘em straight to…”

Well, not hell. This is hell. 

Cigarettes and xacto blades and alcohol. 

Kissing and fucking a man you love, but can’t heal. 

Wondering which of you will go too far first, and why you aren’t strong enough to stop it.


	2. Criss Cross Waste Basket

Peter thinks there’s something beautiful about the red pearls on the thick lines of his arms and thighs. Criss cross patterns when he ran out of space, morse code blood staining the tub. Too many lines from elbow to wrist, too many feelings on each of his thighs  

Bucky’s gonna be pissed if he doesn’t bleach the proof away. 

The water is too hot against his clammy skin, but the red drops don’t blur until his shifts, until hot water stings the lacerations and he hisses something awful watching the red-yellow slide down the drain  

Bucky stumbles in, concern etched into his foggy eyes, stumbles right into the shower, metal arms and clothes and all.

”Ain’t copin’ no more,” he slurs.

Peter thinks of the world outside, of the heroes and villains, bloody and blurred, and the kids with out homes and the parents with out kids.

He thinks of an arch reactor nestled in a wreath and Harley and MJ’s first baby on the way. He thinks of a Captain’s memorial right next to a metal suit, and a blond mother in a silver rescue who can’t quit searching the universe.

“No one is,” Peter says, watching his arm stain. “Not even the man with the shield.”

Bucky hates him for that. Peter can see it in his broken stare. He strips the Winter Soldier, throws the soggy clothes onto the floor to be dealt with later, and bites his mouth until rough fingers squeeze his arm too tight, grow red against his thought. 

“Gonna kill ourselves in here,” Bucky snarls. “Not sure they’d approve.”

Peter digs his nails into Bucky’s back, and the pearls aren’t as pretty as his own, but he waits till he’s coming to say “Then they fucking shoulda stuck around.”

Bucky stutters his own orgasm against him, and then vomits at their feet. 

Peter cleans that up, and when Bucky’s a little less drunk he wraps the cuts with military precision and they collapse against musty sheets, swearing _tomorrow we will clean. Tomorrow we will heal._

As if it isn’t already tomorrow. 


End file.
